


Sisters

by SgtMac



Category: Batwoman (TV 2019)
Genre: Gen, Post 1x11, sister drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:53:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22529650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SgtMac/pseuds/SgtMac
Summary: A typically turbulent conversation between estranged sisters, wherein Alice voices her displeasure with this new Beth, and Kate's easier relationship with her.
Relationships: Beth Kane/Kate Kane
Comments: 5
Kudos: 54





	Sisters

**Author's Note:**

> So....it's been awhile since I've written and posted anything. This is short - my first foray into this universe, and these characters. I'm still trying to feel out their voices, but there's so much angst and psychology to dig into; should be fun.
> 
> Would love to hear your thoughts; enjoy!

It’s cold; normal here for Gotham in the dead of winter. After so many years away, she’d forgotten just how deep the chill could get. Just how pervasive. Her thick wool coat clutched around her, she peers up towards the rooftops she’s taken to moving across, watching the shadows as she’s found herself doing more and more these days.

She’s not always sure what she’s looking for, but… _something_.

With a weary sigh, Kate Kane turns a corner – down Marsten and 4th – and makes her way towards the usual chattering noise and bustle of the street vendors; their sounds and activity a constant even in weather approaching nearly frigid. Out here, right now, the weather is a mere nuisance; a chilly backdrop to the many wares being hawked – foil-wrapped garlic-roasted corn and bison stew and all sorts of other tasty smelling things in addition to the shiny baubles and odd but curious trinkets.

It’d be so easy to lose herself completely in the transactional normalcy of being out in Gotham.

The simple ordinary nature of it all.

But nothing in her life is ordinary or normal, she muses.

It’s the deep hum of her phone within her pocket, against her thigh, which pulls her from her morose and admittedly indulgently melodramatic thoughts. She fishes it out, frowns slightly at the unknown number on the screen, and then punches the ANSWER button. “Kane,” she replies.

“Ka-ane,” she hears a chillingly familiar voice sing-song reply, and then there’s a pause before a slightly high, but oddly unamused sounding giggle follows. “Well, no not anymore. You see my family abandoned me to an awful man and I decided I don’t really like last names. They’re so… _normal_.”

Yep, and there’s that word.

Normal.

Miles from it, these days.

Kate stops in the middle of the street, tension causing her body to go rigid as she clutches her phone against her ear. She can feel the way her muscles tighten, as if preparing for battle. A part of her thinks such physical wariness is absurd because Alice is on the phone with her, but she’s played this game before and her sister has seemed to be around every corner.

Her sister or that lunatic companion of hers – Mouse.

But Mouse is in custody now. Chained to a hospital bed, heavily sedated to keep him docile.

Five guards on his room. Aware of just how dangerous he is.

“Bat got your tongue?” Alice taunts, drawing Kate back to the present again.

“What do you want, Alice?” Kate growls, her empty hand clenching against her side. Like she’s looking for a weapon; her fingers ghost across the batarang in the pocket of her coat. It’s not as strong as the usual ones which adorn her Batwoman costume, but it will suffice.

There’s another pause and then, her voice almost disturbingly quiet, Alice replies, “Maybe I just wanted to hear my sisters voice. Have you considered that? Have you considered that maybe I just miss you and hoped that you missed me just as much? After all, we are twin -oh wait -“ her voice rises in pitch, then. “That’s right, you replaced me with a different twin, didn’t you? With _her_.”

“Her?” Kate questions, her heart hammering in her chest, as she realizes what Alice is referring to.

Or rather, _who_.

“The other me. _Beth_ ,” Alice spits out, venomously. “But she’s _not_ me, Kate. She’s an imposter.”

“No, she’s not you,” Kate agrees, her eyes again scanning the street. Her eyes settle on one of the food carts, the owner of it holding up two foil wrapped ears of roasted corn. “It’s…it’s complicated.”

“Everything is complicated, dear; that’s the nature of insanity.”

“If you say so.”

There’s a pause, like Alice is trying to parse out Kate’s response, but then she snaps, “You prefer her, don’t you? The other me. Does she have my traumas? Or is she still innocent and pure? The perfect sister for a superhero? No inconvenient bad memories or messy guilt attached to weigh you down. No terrible voices to chill your bones. She’s not… _bonkers_.” Alice laughs shrilly.

“I want Beth,” Kate deflects because her head is spinning with noise and concussion and so much pain - all of it confusing. This new Beth is the dream – complicated in the way a woman of her age is but unburdened by the kind of pain and torment that Alice has gone through. The dream, yes, but not the reality because Alice’s burden is one which Kate has to share. It’s one that belongs to them.

Oh, but it would be so much easier if she could just claim the Beth from the other earth and pretend that Alice is someone else entirely. Not her sister; just a villain to chain and put behind bars for good.

Destroy and put down as she and her father had vowed.

But it’s not that easy.

Because Alice is still her sister.

Will always be her sister, no matter what else twists and turns.

There’s another long pause and then, her voice too childish to hide the intense hurt she’s feeling, the hurt which she’s never matured enough to properly learn to deal with, Alice tells her, “I’m your sister, Kate. Not her. It’s our story. Not hers. And I’m not going to allow her to… it’s not her story.”

“Please,” Kate murmurs and she never begs. She’s not begging now, just asking for the quiet she needs to figure this all out. To understand how to proceed.

How to balance her hope with her guilt.

It’s not as easy as a simple choice; too many memories involved.

Too much heart.

And far too much of a desire – even now, even still – to find a way to save Alice from herself.

To bring back the Beth within her.

“I saw her with you,” Alice says suddenly, cutting into her thoughts. There’s an odd thump like she’s hitting something. “When it all hurts so much and it feels like it’s about to explode, there she is suddenly in my head, so bright. So pretty and safe. Oh, but she doesn’t get to be there, too, Kate.” There’s the barest hint of terror there - shakily expressed fear about yet another demon taking up residence in her already badly shattered mind. But then she giggles and says, “It’s my home.”

Aside from internally acknowledging that the weird migraines and images Beth has been having – hers of Alice and the confusion of her - appear to go both ways, Kate chooses to ignore the last statement - the bizarreness of words which do little but point to the jello like nature of Alice’s psyche. “There’s something going on,” she states. “Something connected to the reason she’s… here, too.”

“You’re going to let me die again, aren’t you?” Beth asks, that weird sad childishness back again.

Kate closes her eyes, trying not to feel the pull at her heart. “What do you want from me? You know I – you’re killing people. You framed our father. I have to -“ 

“Stop me. Yes, I know. Because you’re a ‘hero’ and I’m a villain but the fake me is perfect, right?”

“What do you want from me?” Kate repeats, still not begging, but almost pleading.

“I want my sister, Kate. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. You and me like we used to be. A family. Our family.”

“Not like this,” Kate tells her. “I have a responsibility.”

“And I have a plan. For us,” Alice tells her, her voice rising again. “And it doesn’t involve being replaced by someone who never fell down the rabbit hole to hell. I’ve had everything in my life taken away from me including my sanity. She doesn’t get to take you away from me, too.” It’s as staggeringly clear and lucid a statement as Kate has ever heard her make, and it’s utterly chilling.

Because deep in that wrecked psyche is understanding; awareness of just how broken she is.

Awareness that her salvation can likely only be found through Kate.

Awareness buried and warped beneath fear, trauma, anger and hate.

Alice takes a breath, then, sounding noticeably pained, and Kate wonders if she’s having another one of the vision migraines. Beth’s been having them fairly steadily for the last few days, each one giving her a flash of a doppelgänger she doesn’t understand the creation or meaning of; Alice is likely experiencing the same unfortunate agonizing reality; for her, flashes of an idyllic identity which seems impossible to understanding considering the terrible life she’s been forced to life. “It’s all right,” she says, sounding shaky. “You just have to see - you will see. And then…we will be okay.”

“I don’t think we will ever be okay again,” Kate argues, her jaw clenching and the unclenching as she hears her own words. “This has to end, Alice. It has to. I don’t want to hurt you but I will stop you.”

“You’ve already hurt me. And I know you want to kill me. That _will_ hurt, Kate.”

Kate almost laughs at the absurdity of the words, but instead argues, “I don’t –“

“But she can’t have you. You’re _my_ sister. You’re my life. I won't let you go."

The phone disconnects, then, leaving Kate standing in the middle of the street, just now recognizing all of the people who have had to move around her during her discussion.

Just now recognizing her inertia.

Just now realizing and perhaps accepting that one way or another, everything has to change. 

She looks up towards the sky, towards the roof, eyes narrowing on a dark silhouette standing atop one of the buildings, a coat tenting outward in the darkness, hair chaotically haloing.

It’s Alice, of course; this, Kate knows for a fact.

Watching her.

Always watching.

It's creepy, but also terribly sad. The guilt of choices she can't take un-do no matter the rewriting of worlds weighs heavy; the need to save _this_ sister even now still heavier.

Kate turns away from the street vendors, from the ordinary of it all.

A life which is no longer hers.

And heads towards the shadows.

Towards Alice and the rabbit hole which is their story.

-Fin


End file.
